Of Silence and Human Error
by EmRose92
Summary: Sometimes there is nothing to be said, even and especially when those you love the most are the ones who hurt you the deepest. A three-part story dealing with key events in the threefold relationship between John, Mary, and Sherlock in His Last Vow. John leaves. Mary regrets. Sherlock falls. Can be read as a companion to "In Not So Many Words."
1. The Leaving

Coping with the heartache of His Last Vow. This will be a three-parter, I think, delving into the relationship between Sherlock, John, and Mary in the most emotional moments of the final episode of Season 3. It won't be pretty, but there's so much emotional baggage between all three of them in this episode that I can't just let it go unexplored. And what better way than through a piece of writing, right?

This is your last warning: **This piece contains major spoilers for Sherlock Season 3. Proceed with caution.**

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**The Leaving**

His shirts were already creased.

The suitcase was tucked under the lip of the big bed. He swept it out with one hand and set it carefully on the bedspread, and then he began to fold his shirts carefully into its depths. He was finding it difficult to think, difficult to reason—part of him was watching his own hands fold a green button-down and tuck the sleeves in and place it on top of a solid blue jumper and wondering why his hands were working so quickly and efficiently without his consent. The rest of him was blank, numb, and did not care what his hands were doing.

When he turned to the dresser, he heard footsteps behind him and closed his eyes, inhaled through his nose, and began to pull neatly folded jeans from the bottom drawer.

When he turned to face the door he did not look at Mary—she stood in the frame, leaning against it with her hands clasped in front of her. He could feel her eyes on him, but his left hand was starting to shake and he clenched it tightly and went to the closet.

"John," she whispered. "John..."

He cocked his head sharply at the sound of her voice, and though it had been involuntary she fell silent as if struck. It was extraordinarily difficult to keep his eyes from finding her face as he tucked a pair of slacks and two jumpers into his suitcase; he could see her wiping surreptitiously at her cheeks as he bent to grab a pair of dress shoes from the closet floor.

His heart began to hurt.

But his head was still blank, and he was grateful for once that he was not extraordinarily clever, that he did not have the mental prowess to push through barriers that had flung themselves high and strong around him. He did not know who he would be if he were extraordinarily clever, but he knew that he would do and say things he might regret, and he did not want to regret anything else tonight.

He packed silently, methodically, and she stayed in the doorway, watching him. When he had gone to the washroom and grabbed his toothbrush and a razor and a few other odds and ends he thought he might need, he looked at his reflection in the mirror and did not recognize himself. The man staring back at him looked old and distant, and the eyes were dark and dead. He touched his cheek lightly with one hand and was surprised to find that the corpse in the mirror did the same.

_John Watson, _he thought. _John Hamish Watson. _

It was an unfamiliar name, and he left it hanging in the air and went back out to the bedroom. Mary was still at the door. _Mary Elizabeth Watson. Mary. _Or Alice. Amanda. Abigail. _A.G.R.A. _He did not know, and he did not care. There was a hard, rectangular bulge in his right pocket, and one edge of the thumb drive dug into his hip as he zipped up the suitcase and swung it off the bed. He ignored it—it was far too important to think of now.

The suitcase was far too light and small for an extended time away, but he could come back for the rest when she was away at the office.

He didn't know how long he would be gone. Or if he was ever coming back.

He looked around for his coat, and she cleared her throat softly. She held it in her hands, and his eyes flicked involuntarily to her face and then away—she was looking at him as she had in Baker Street, with that cool, clear detachment that could not quite hide her terror and grief. He hated that look. Hated that she was trying to be strong, hated that she was not sobbing and begging his forgiveness, hated that she was not trying to stop him from leaving.

He realized that she was waiting for him to take the jacket, and so he cleared his throat too and approached her, his heart pulsing bitterly in his chest. He could still smell traces of her perfume, and it disgusted him.

Sherlock had smelled like that when he'd been lying there with a bullet hole in his chest. He didn't think he'd ever be able to smell it again without remembering the acrid stench of blood on his hands. On her hands.

He took the jacket without looking at her. He could not bear to see that cold deadness in her eyes, because he knew it reflected his own and he never wanted to look at his own face again. She followed him out to the front room and waited in the short hallway as he rummaged in the kitchen for an apple. He was not hungry—indeed, he didn't think he'd ever be hungry again—but he wanted to maintain some semblance of normalcy, and food was normal.

He tucked the apple into his pocket. The car keys hung on a peg next to the stovetop, and he glanced at them but did not take them. He would take a taxi; he did not trust himself to drive.

And besides, Mary would need the car.

He set the suitcase down on the kitchen floor and shrugged his Haversack on with his back to her. He had left his black coat slung over the sofa, and he left it there now. The Haversack was a comfortable weight on his shoulders, and it felt a bit like stepping back into a previous life.

Any previous life was better than the one he was living now.

He lifted the suitcase again and went to the door. He did not let his footsteps falter, but his heart stuttered as he reached for the doorknob, and his hand wavered. _Sentiment_. _Human error_.

"Shut up," he said, and Mary shifted behind him.

"Sorry?"

"Not…not you." His voice was stiff and cracked, and he cleared his throat. "Not you."

But he could not think of Sherlock now, wrapped up in hospital sheets with tubes and IVs and morphine, any easier than he could think of his wife standing behind him in the dark hallway. He could not think of anyone, not even himself. He was standing outside himself, and he was no one at all.

His gloves were on the side-table, and he took them and pulled them on slowly, unsure why he was stalling, not sure he _was_ stalling. Then he picked up the suitcase again and took the handle. It turned slowly under his touch, and he pulled it open and let the cold night air leak onto his face and neck.

"Scarf," he said, and turned to find it, but Mary was picking it up off one of the bar stools and holding it out to him, her cheeks wet with tears but her clear blue eyes cool and set. He took it and slung it around his neck with his free hand, wishing it did not remind him of Sherlock, wishing he had left without it. He looked down at it hanging awkwardly against the sleek black fabric of the Haversack and thought poetically that his clothes were just as confused about his identity as he was.

He did not know if she would call him back, and he did not know if he wanted her to or not. But the door was open and he was leaving, and he did not hear her voice as he stepped out onto the front stoop and the chill leaked into his body and ruffled his hair.

The old Mary might have called him back. The old Mary of reading on the couch and bare feet and laughter and warmth and wedded bloody domestic bliss would have called him back, and he would have gone. The new Mary, the cold, unfamiliar, murdering Mary, would not try to hold him back again.

What did it say about him that if she had, he might have turned and walked back into the house and taken her in his arms without a second thought?

But she did not speak, and he reached behind him and grasped the doorknob. He did not want to look at her again, but he could not help himself; his eyes sought hers even as he closed the door behind him. Her mouth opened, then, and the cold detachment in the lines of her face and eyes cracked and broke, but before she could do more than take a heaving breath and open her mouth he closed the door.

He could not bear it if she said his name.

Because even though he hated her strength and he hated her coldness, though he hated that she had never apologized, hated that he hadn't needed her to, hated that was letting him walk away, hated her breaking down and her weakness there, there at the very end; though he hated that she was carrying his child and had shot Sherlock and confined him to the suburbs and had lied, lied, lied..

The thing he hated most was how much he loved her.

* * *

John never caught a break in this episode...it was just one heartache after another. He has so many emotional barriers up in this episode, and I just wanted to delve into his psyche a little bit. I hope I did all right.

But you can let me know whether I did or not by leaving a review! The other two parts (one from Sherlock's POV, the other from Mary's), will be up shortly.


	2. From the Dead

Part II, Mary and Sherlock from Mary's POV. She was a little tougher to write, and I'm not sure she's quite right, but I'll get there. Thank you all so very much for your kind reviews, for favorite-ing, and for following this story - I'm glad that people are struggling to process His Last Vow as much as I am!

Oh, and no matter how it might seem, don't think that this is in any way a "Mary loves Sherlock" or "Sherlock loves John romantically" thing. If it comes across that way, I wrote it wrong. I just wanted to explore their love for each other - but not all love is romantic. Keep that in mind.

**Again, be warned: major spoilers for Sherlock Season 3 ahead!**

Emrose

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**From the Dead**

Sherlock kept in touch. She would get a text from him every evening like clockwork, the same message with little variation.

_John fine. No news. Any trouble? _Or, _John fine. Mentioned you in passing. No news. _Or, _John well. No news. Everything dull. He misses you._

And every night she would reply in kind. _Heard nothing. Baby well. Tell him I love him. _Or, _No news here. Has he read it yet? Tell him I love him._

She did not know if he ever relayed her messages, but she could not help but send them anyway. She had tried to text John's phone, but he never responded and she wondered if he had blocked her number. So she sent them through Sherlock, knowing she could trust him to relay the information when the right time presented itself.

A week before Christmas, her phone vibrated a few minutes before noon, and she picked it up to see Sherlock's name on the screen. She looked at it for a long few second, and then swiped her thumb rigidly across the screen.

"Sherlock?" she asked. Her heart was thumping wildly in her chest, and she closed her eyes tightly when the warm, familiar baritone filtered through the earpiece.

"_Mary. I'm to ask you to come to Christmas dinner at my parents'. Mycroft will be there, of course…they insist on a welcome home-party for their prodigal son. That's me, not Mycroft. You'll come, don't bother to bring anything, my mother has it all sorted. Shall I give you the address?"_

Tears had sprung to her eyes, and she wiped them away angrily with her free hand and reached for her Bluetooth.

"_Mary?"_

"Yes, yes, I'm here," she said, and her voice was irritatingly thick, and she let out a derisive laugh that turned into a choked sob. "Yes, I'm sorry."

"_You're…crying. Why are you crying? There's absolutely nothing to cry about. What reason could you possibly have for crying?"_

"Pregnant, Sherlock," she managed, and he made a soft _"oh,"_ on the other end of the line and then continued – she could see him stalking around the front room of Baker Street, flapping his free hand about and peering periodically out the window, perhaps still in his dressing gown, hair mussed and flattened to his head in odd places, barefoot and completely unaware that she wasn't crying because she was pregnant…she was crying because he was just so _Sherlock_.

The last time she had seen him he'd been standing in front of her with blood blossoming across his ribcage, looking at her with childish wonder, and watching the light bleed from his eyes as he'd stared at her in desolated confusion had completely broken her heart. She had watched him fall, watched him hit the floor and lie still with nothing more than her name passing his lips, and it had taken everything inside her to turn away from him and leave him lying there.

She had left quickly, hurtling down the winding stairs and out through the window on the second floor, scuttling across the narrow window ledges and swinging down the fire escape, dropping to the ground with a grunt and turning to take one last look up at the windows high above her where a man lay dying and the man she loved would be ready to murder the killer. She'd tucked the gun away inside her shirt, feeling it nestle against her swelling stomach and hating herself. What sort of mother she'd be…her, a trained killer, the mother of a child?

And the man dying upstairs was dying for the sake of the small, already-broken family she was trying so desperately to hold together.

How long would it last?

It could all come crashing down, now. She hadn't meant to kill Sherlock, and though it would make things so much easier if he died, she could not live with him dead. She could not bear to put John back together again, not when she would be the cause of his shattering.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid…" she paced around and around the doctor's office where she had stashed her street clothes before she'd left work that afternoon, watching her phone and waiting for the inevitable phone call. It was closer than their flat—she'd made it in less than ten minutes, and now all she had to do was wait for John's call, wait for a reasonable length of time, and pretend she was coming from home when she arrived at the hospital.

But the phone did not ring, and she paced around and around, thinking of Sherlock's burning, glassy eyes on her face, thinking of him falling gracefully backwards, hearing his head strike the floor, watching the red bleed through his crisp white shirt.

But that wonderful, brilliant man so full of life could not die. No, she could not bear it if he died.

"Live, Sherlock, live, Sherlock, live…" she found herself repeating over and over, hands clasped to her hot face, alone in the dark and swallowing against the aching lump in her throat. Her eyes were dry, for which she was grateful. It would not do now to cry. It would only make her weak, and weakness made mistakes.

When her phone finally chirped on the low-slung counter in John's office she grabbed wildly for it desperately and squeezed her eyes shut. _John calling_. She took a deep, steadying breath and answered lightly, easily.

"John?"

"_It's Sherlock. He's been shot. Mary, he's in a bad…he's in a bad way. He might not…the doctors say he might not pull through. Oh, Mary, Mary…"_

She did not have to pretend as she began to cry, hot tears squeezing from the corners of her eyes.

"Who? Who would have shot him? Where _were_ you? Are you hurt? John, are you okay?"

"_Doesn't matter. None of that matters. I'll explain everything…just, just get here, please. Please."_

"Of course, of course I'll come, I'm coming now…"

It took all her self-control to force herself to wait, to wait for a few minutes before she grabbed at her keys and ran back to her car, forcing the keys into the ignition with shaking hands. She could let herself be emotional now, now it was alright, she had an excuse. Sherlock would see right through her, but John…dear, loyal John who never saw the signs, who turned a blind eye to all the clues, would never question her.

And now she sat in the front room of her flat and listened to his voice ramble on cheerfully about pudding and punch and the ghastly tinsel and lights and did she have a good soprano, because mummy always expected them to sing carols.

He had forgiven her the second she'd shot him. She had seen it in his eyes, just before they rolled up and away and he'd fallen with her bullet in his chest. He had forgiven her, though he hadn't understood why she'd done it, not yet, but he was clever and it hadn't taken him long after he woke up to understand everything. And now here he was inviting her to Christmas with the Holmes family, and she had never loved him more fiercely than she did at that moment, sitting alone in her empty, silent flat and listening to his voice on the line for the first time in months.

"Sherlock." His endless stream of words cut off abruptly, and he let out a small sigh on the other end. She smiled through her tears and laughed again, bringing trembling fingers to her mouth. "Sherlock, you know what I'm going to ask, so go ahead and answer."

There was a short silence. _"Yes, of course he'll be there. Isn't it time the two of you…kissed and…made up, or whatever people do after a row?"_

"It's not that simple."

"_It should be. I'm not dead, am I?"_

"It's not that simple, Sherlock."

"_Yes, you just said that."_

"And you weren't listening."

"_Of course I was listening." _

"No, you weren't."

He heaved an enormous sigh. _"Well, it's all ridiculous, anyway. Will you come?"_

"Have you really forgiven me so easily?"

"_What's there to forgive?"_

She closed her eyes. "I did _shoot_ you."

"_Yes, you did. For John. And believe me, Mary…" _He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was husky and sincere. _"There isn't anything I wouldn't do for John either."_

"It was selfish, there might have been another way and I just didn't see…Sherlock, I never even apologized." And now tears were dripping down her face in earnest, and she took a deep, shuddering breath in an effort to control herself.

"_There was never any need. Come now, Mary, you know me. You might have been selfish, but if there's one fault I can forgive it's being selfish when it comes to John Watson. I'm rather selfish in that area myself."_

"Would you have shot me for him?"

She had asked it out of self-loathing, sure she was the only one in the world who was horrible enough to do what she had done, but as soon as the question had crossed her lips she wasn't sure she wanted an honest answer. He would give one, though, Sherlock, and if he lied she'd be able to tell. She could always tell. Watching him was like watching herself.

Sherlock seemed to be wrestling with himself, but she waited quietly, letting her tears dry on her cheeks, hands folded neatly in her lap.

"_He shot a man for me, when we'd only known each other just over 24 hours," _Sherlock finally said slowly. _"Were I placed in the same position, I would shoot without hesitation. But you, Mary…you were right. To lose you would break him. And I could never do that to John."_

"And you?" Mary whispered. "I saw what losing you did to him, Sherlock. I pieced him back together, but when you came back it was like he woke from the dead."

There was a smile in his voice now, and she could see him in her mind's eye, staring out the window with a gentle softness in his face that he reserved only for John when he thought no one was watching. _"Yes, he was, wasn't he? We're too alike, he and I. And you, Mary." _He chuckled, a deep rumble in his chest. _"What a piece of work is a man. What a piece of work we are."_

She nodded, and the tears leaking down her cheeks now were not bitter or guilty, though she still felt both. His laughter was a glow of warmth in the center of her aching heart that had been so alone and so cold for so many weeks, and she cried because Sherlock was still Sherlock, and would always _be _Sherlock, and no bullet would ever change that.

"_So. Christmas?"_

Oh, yes. Christmas.

* * *

So yes, it might be slightly more than slightly John-influenced, even if it's about Sherlock and Mary. Sorry. I just love him, and plus, I feel that this episode was VERY John-centric in a lot of ways, so it makes sense that he'd feature in this one too, right? Right. I'm excited for part III with John and Sherlock from Sherlock's point of view, so be looking for that soon! I'll give you a hint - it's _not_ about the final scenes. I've chosen a different part that I think very subtly showcases their relationship, and I just hope it works!

*Insert shameless plug for reviews here*


	3. He Who Matters Most

The conclusion to this has been a while coming because I wrote it...and it ended up getting away from me and turning into its own one-shot, which I posted a few days ago. It's called "In Not So Many Words," and you should go check that one out too, because it was supposed to be here! But instead this one happened, and Mycroft somehow shoved his way in (gracefully and with dignity, of course), and though this is John and Sherlock's story, poor John only gets a cameo at the end.

But I like how it worked. And if you want lots of John and Sherlock His Last Vow bonding, head over to the above-mentioned one-shot. It's all there.

Anyway, this is the conclusion to Of Silence and Human Error...thanks so much for being so supportive! Enjoy this last chapter!

EmRose

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**He Who Matters Most**

He sat across the desk from his brother, and did not know what to say. His hands rested lightly in his lap, cuffed together with shiny steel handcuffs that were cool against his wrists. He did not know why they were there, because he was not armed and did not intend to run. His brother knew this, but did not order the men standing guard at the door to remove the cuffs.

"Do you know what you have done?" His brother asked finally, and his face was as impassive as his voice, but his eyes were pools of grief and despair. Or, at least they were to someone who knew how to observe.

"Of course I do," he said, and he meant it to sound aloof and unconcerned, but he knew as soon as the words left his lips that his brother could see through him too.

"And you know what position you have placed me in."

"Not one you haven't been in before."

His brother sighed and rubbed a hand across his face, and then he glanced up at the guards. "You may leave us."

"But sir…"

"I am perfectly safe, I assure you."

"Sir, our orders…"

He felt like smiling as his brother's face hardened and he rose slowly to his full 6'1, impressively silhouetted against the dim lighting in the office, but his lips would not do as he bid them. He settled instead for staring out the window, where streetlights flared and a city slept, unaware of the drama unfolding in a warm, quiet room high above the streets and far removed from any of the ordinary, sedentary lives below.

When his brother was once again seated across the desk from him and the men had departed reluctantly with cold, calculated threats still lingering in the air behind them, he cleared his throat.

"If I could have done anything different…"

"I warned you to stay away from him," his brother said, but the mask had dropped, and he was simply an exhausted, middle-aged man in a tan suit and crisp red tie who was going to have to return to his parents' house and inform them that another son would not be coming home. "I warned you. I was only trying to protect you, if you had only listened…"

"If I had listened, Mary would be sentenced to a lifetime in prison."

"And what is she to you? When have you ever been the self-sacrificing kind?"

"She…" he looked down at his cuffed wrists and flexed his fingers slowly under the desk. His head was foggy, he could not think straight, and his thick coat was heavy on his shoulders. "She is the wife of the man I call my best friend. I wouldn't expect you to understand, Mycroft."

"And was she worth it? Your death, is she worth that?"

"I don't know," he whispered, but he did. Mary alone, Mary was not worth it. He would have never sacrificed himself for her sake alone, but standing there in the dark next to the soldier who had sacrificed everything, had always sacrificed everything, the decision had been easy. "Maybe not."

"And yet you committed murder for her after I expressly told you…"

"Not for her," he interrupted, and he raised his head to meet his brother's eyes. "Not for Mary. For John. I committed murder for John Watson, and I would do it again."

His brother's face sagged imperceptibly, and he blinked slowly and looked away. "I see."

"Do you, Mycroft? Do you really?"

His brother looked back at him again and shook his head, eyebrows lifting in a deceptively casual gesture. "It was very noble."

"It wasn't noble." He did not know why he wanted Mycroft to understand, but perhaps he was only trying to understand himself. It did not make sense—he could not put the pieces together. Already those moments on the front stoop of Appledore seemed a lifetime ago, and the man who had held a gun in his hand and pulled the trigger was a different man altogether. "It was friendship. That's what friends do."

"Not most friends."

"What would you know?"

"Would John Watson have done that for you?"

He blinked, and a distant memory rose easily to hover in front of him, a starry, breathless night from years past, with a John Watson he barely recognized and a Sherlock Holmes he no longer knew. Single gunshots and bright orange blankets and a dead cabbie in a University far, far away, and the moment he knew that John Watson was something very, very special.

"Yes," he said simply. "He would."

His brother's eyes narrowed, but he did not elaborate. Mycroft's eyes rolled subtly upward but he did not question further.

"Speaking of John Watson," Mycroft began, but he interrupted again, his heart thudding once, loudly, in his chest.

"You can do something, can't you?"

Mycroft's eyebrow lifted towards the ceiling again. "He is your accomplice, little brother. There is only so much I can do for traitors…"

"He had nothing at all to do with this," he said desperately, and his voice rose despite himself. "And you know as well as I do he didn't. I dragged him into this, just like I dragged him into everything else. He is entirely innocent, surely you can see…"

"Calm down, Sherlock," Mycroft said, and the sound of his name was enough to push him gently back into the chair out of which he had half-risen, the breath expelling from his lungs. "I will put in a word for him. There is no evidence he had anything to do with the…happenings…of tonight. Neither, however, is there evidence to acquit him."

"I will vouch for him…"

His brother threw back his head and laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "The word of a murderer? I think not. Your word is no longer good. Even mine is precarious. I am _emotionally_ _compromised_, you see. There is hell to pay, Sherlock, and we shall both pay it."

_Your loss would break my heart._

For the first time since he had taken the laptop from under his brother's limp hand at the kitchen table, he thought that he may have made the wrong decision. The thought stopped his heart, and his hands spasmed in his lap.

But then he thought of John, and he drew a deep, steadying breath and knew there was nothing else he could have done. John, who had killed for him on that first night, John who had remained loyal through kidnappings and suicides and bombs and lies, John who had never doubted, John who had thrown himself head-over-heels into danger without a second's thought, John who had always believed, always loved.

He had destroyed his own life with a single shot, and he would destroy it a thousand times over for John Watson.

"Can I see him?"

"John? He is in custody."

"And can I _see_ him?"

Mycroft tilted his head, and his lips curved in a smile that he knew was meant to be caustic and condescending, but was instead rather melancholy.

"I warned you to not get involved."

"I'm afraid I didn't listen."

"No. You never did."

Mycroft's face softened, and as their eyes locked across the desk something like understanding passed between them. Mycroft leaned forward and tapped the intercom on his desk.

"_Yes, sir?"_

"Send for John Watson. Show him in directly."

"_But sir…"_

"Must we go through this again?"

"_No, sir."_

Mycroft settled back in his chair, and still with that softness in his face, he said very quietly, "I will do everything I can, Sherlock. But I cannot pretend that I have any hope."

"Thank you."

"It will break her."

"Yes."

But he did not want to think of his mother now, he could not…he had not thought of her when he left for Appledore, and he had not thought of her when he pulled the trigger. He had had room for only one person in his head and heart then, and he had room for only one now. He could spare a thought for Mycroft, because his brother was sitting across the wide expanse of the expensive oak desk looking at him in a way he had never before looked at him, but the thought was fleeting because the door was opening behind him.

"Sherlock?"

He and Mycroft did not break their gaze as he stood, hands held carefully in front of him. They said it all in that look, like they always had—there had never been the need for words between them, and there was no need for them now.

They both understood that there was one person in the world that he would die for, and it was not his brother, and it was not Mary Watson.

It was the man standing behind him with his own hands in cuffs, waiting silently in the doorway as he had always waited, with the patience of a soldier and a best friend.

He turned to face John Watson, and he did not know what to say.

* * *

The end. Let me know what you think. I have many more thoughts and stories milling about in my head, and I'll most likely write them down and post them up over the course of the next few weeks/months/until we get season 4, so keep an eye on my profile. Or not. Whatever you like.

Thanks again for reading! It means so much!


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